Sacramento County Biographies

HENRY S. PUTNEY

Transcribed by: Nancy Pratt Melton

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

DRY CREEK TOWNSHIP. 
Page 256

	born in State of New York, May 13, 1828, where he remained 
until February, 1849, when he started for California, via the Isthmus route. 
When he arrived at Panama, his money was exhausted, and he engaged in 
ship-building, mining, water-selling, and hotel-keeping to replenish his purse. 
On arriving in California, July 28, 1849, he went at once to the mines at Lay's 
Bar, on the American River. In the Spring of 1850 Mr. Putney went to the mines 
on Murderer's Bar. His mining enterprises proved very successful. During the 
Fall of 1850 he went on a ranch near San Jose, which he abandoned for the 
present home, six miles east of Elk Grove; he has resided here since, and has 
been engaged in farming, stock-raising and threshing. To him belongs the honor 
of running the first thresher ever run in the valley, and he has continued the 
business for twenty-eight years. In pioneer days he got twenty cents a bushel 
for threshing grain; six hundred bushels was a fair day's work. The farm on 
which he now lives is well located, and is very productive; it contains six 
hundred and fifty acres of land, and is valued at $8,700.  November 27, 1862, 
Mr. Putney married Miss Rhoda A. Bates. They have five children, named 
respectively Melvina E., George S., Julia M., Eliza C., and Frank M., all of 
whom are now living. A view of Mr. Putney's house is given elsewhere. 
 
Source: History of Sacramento County, California With Illustrations 1880 by 
Thompson & West.
 

	Farmer, Dry Creek Township, was born May 13, 1828, in Yates 
County, New York, a son of Jedediah and Caroline S. (Gartwell) Putney, of 
English descent. His father, who was also a farmer, died in Yates County in 1850 
at the age of forty-five years. In his family were four sons and four daughters; 
the sons were Decastro A., Henry S., George S., and Lyman D. Decastro died on 
shipboard, on the Pacific Ocean, in 1853, of pneumonia. Mr. Putney was reared 
upon the farm in New York State until he was of age, in 1849, when he sailed 
from New York City, February 14, for California, on the Crescent City to Panama, 
and on the whaling ship Sylph for San Francisco, landing at that city July 28. 
Coming to Sacramento by sailboat, he went directly to the mines near Auburn, and 
mined for gold about a year, with moderate success. In the fall of 1850 he went 
to San Jose and entered a tract of Government land, which he afterward exchanged 
for a claim in this county where he now resides, twenty miles from Sacramento. 
It contains 530 acres, well adapted to grain, hay and livestock. All the 
improvements now seen there he has made himself, having lived there since 1851. 
A good orchard and vineyard are on the premises. He came with nothing and was 
$16 in debt, and he has made all his property by his own honest earnings. He was 
the first man to run a Separator threshing machine in Sacramento County. Mr. 
Putney, December 27, 1862, married Miss Rhoda A., daughter of Calvin and Eliza 
W. (Bixby) Bates, her father a native of Vermont and mother of New York. Mr. and 
Mrs. Putney have five children: Melvina E., born September 13, 1863; George S., 
January 5, 1865, and died June 12, 1887; Julia M., born January 28, 1866; Eliza 
C., October 24, 1873; and Frankie M., May 11, 1879. Melvina is the wife of Frank 
S. Wardrobe, of this county; the other children are still at their paternal 
home. Mrs. Putney crossed the plains in 1859 to this State with her brother 
George O. Bates and family, who now reside in Sacramento city; they were six 
months on the route. She and her daughter Julia are members of the Rebekah 
Degree Lodge, No. 36, of which Miss Julia is Noble Grand. Mr. Putney is a member 
of Elk Grove Lodge, No. 274, I.O.O.F.

An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. By Hon. Win. J. Davis. 
Lewis Publishing Company 1890. Page 379-380.

Transcribed by Debbie Gramlick.